Blood and Salt (22 page)

Mykola knocked and a wiry man in his forties with greying black hair and and strong cheekbones opened the door. Todor’s dark eyes drilled into them as if he sought to extract all that had happened to them since their last visit. He seemed both amazed to see them, and also to realize at once that his old friend would need something from him.

Todor was not Mykola’s cousin, because Mykola didn’t have a cousin in Chernowitz.

He did have a friend who’d worked at the garrison looking after horses most of his life. Now he trained horses for well-off people.

Todor embraced them in turn: Mykola, Daria, Taras.

“Come in,” he said. Inside they met Todor’s
baba
Liuba, who kept house for him now.

By evening,
many important things had been done. Todor had been to see a friend who knew a man who made passports. They would be ready the next day. The Kuzyks didn’t ask how Todor knew who to ask about forged papers. Chernowitz was a big city, and many people passed through it every day, from all over Europe. Perhaps not all of them wanted to remember who they used to be.

Todor and Baba Liuba had also been to an outdoor market where you could get good used clothing. They had bought a second-hand suit and hat for Mykola, and a plain dark dress and a hat with a black feather on top for Daria. Taras had a suit whose jacket and pants didn’t quite match, with a woollen peak cap. When they put the clothes on, after Baba Liuba sponged off a few spots, they looked like city people. Not well-off city people; more like a tradesman and his wife, and their grown son.

“Douzhe dobre,”
Baba Liuba said. She looked rather severe, with the same challenging eyes as her grandson, but when she smiled, the dimples in her cheeks softened her face.

She studied them for a while, then fetched a pair of scissors. She gave Mykola a much shorter haircut, so that no hair stuck out from under the hat, and did the same for Taras. She showed Daria how to wind her hair into a sort of bun that could fit under the hat.

Todor and Liuba had also found one other useful thing: a small
wooden chest to hold all the things their friends were taking with them.

When they fell asleep that night, in the unfamiliar world of the city, the Kuzyks were exhausted beyond anything they’d ever known.
Taras felt as if he’d been beaten with planks.

The following afternoon,
Todor brought home an envelope with passports for Mykola, Daria and Taras Kalyna, which although false, seemed to exhale the scent of Austrian law and order. Lubomyr Heshka had talked about going to Kanady and becoming a new man. Now, without ever intending it, the Kuzyks had become new people.

“I thought it would be safest if I gave you a new name,” Todor said. “May you wear it well.” He had named them for the beloved
kalyna
with its green leaves and red berries.

Daria and Mykola handled the passports with amazement. They’d never wanted to travel, never even seen a passport before, but now they had the means and the papers. Of course, they no longer had a home. Or a name.

The next morning,
the Kalynas prepared to leave.
Todor had gone out earlier and bought the tickets. He hadn’t seen any soldiers at the railway station, and everyone hoped it would stay that way.

Todor drove them down to the station in their own cart. There was a bad moment when Colonel Krentz rode down the Stationstrasse on Imperator. He saw them, because he was a man who looked at everything around him, but he never
saw
them. Never saw Taras.

It was decided that Taras would stay in the cart with Todor while Mykola and Daria went inside to make sure there were no soldiers on the platform. They picked up the small chest and their cloth bag and walked up to the main doors.

From the outside, Taras thought the station seemed almost like a church, with its huge dome and the tall arched windows over the doors, front and back, that let you see through to the sky on the other side. From this domed centre, the station stretched out in two wide wings roofed in copper aged to soft green. The uncounted tons of pale stone, the heavy dome, inspired respect, even fear. They spoke of wealth, authority, empire.
Taras had now defied the empire, and he couldn’t wait to see the last of its grandeur.

Taras saw his parents pass through the far doors onto the platform.

Mykola watched
the train pull into the station, brakes squealing, hissing steam. The conductor dropped his stepping box, hopped down and began helping passengers off.

Other people stood around the platform waiting to board. Some, dressed in homespun, carrying cloth bags. A man in a business suit and soft felt hat, with a flat leather case under his arm. Two older ladies in long black dresses and neat but faded coats. Their hovering servant, also old, a long white beard trailing down his chest. An old priest sitting on a wooden bench.

And two soldiers paced the platform, glancing about with sharp blue eyes. They never looked twice at Daria and Mykola.

Inside, new arrivals streamed into the station. Mykola went back out to the street to let Taras know about the soldiers. Told him to wait until the last possible moment to board. But how could he get by the soldiers?

Mykola went back out to the platform to stand with Daria. She raised a hand as if to adjust her headscarf,
but it was no longer there.
Without it, she had to act as though she was someone else, and he could see it was making her tired. She reached up again and changed the angle of the hat so that it shaded her face more.

Taras came inside
the station and made his way to a shadowy corner, just as a man stepped through the front doors – a man with a well-fed look and a confident military bearing. A man used to getting his way. Taras shrank against the wall as Krentz strode smartly through the station and onto the platform.

The colonel went over to the soldiers. They shook their heads –
no young men trying to avoid the army. Krentz looked up and down the platform, shrugged. Stood near the station wall.

The conductor nodded. People drifted toward him, gripping bags, tickets ready, and began to board. Soon only the Kalynas were left. The conductor’s look said,
What’s keeping you? Have you never been on a train before?
They hadn’t, but things like that didn’t bother them any more.
They boarded the train.

Krentz strained to see into the carriages. Ordered the two soldiers to search the cars.
The conductor looked annoyed at this but said nothing, only looking at his watch meaningfully.
Trains must keep to a schedule and he didn’t want to get in trouble.

Taras watched through the station windows. He heard a hiss and a chuff; the train was starting up. Krentz was still on the platform. I
f
Taras didn’t get on that train, he’d be finished. His parents were on their way to Kanady.
They’d given up everything for him.

Looking out to the street, he saw Imperator tied to a lamppost. He went outside, as quickly as he could without attracting attention, giving a little wave to Todor. He stroked the stallion’s neck. Untied him and leapt into the saddle, and took off down Stationstrasse.
As he rode, he made a loose knot in one of the reins, hoping it would look as if they weren’t tied properly.

He heard the approaching engine and the clack of wheels. When he thought he must be well ahead of the train, he pulled up,
jumped off the horse and sent him back down the street with a light slap to his rump. He ran between two buildings and sprinted for the track. The train was passing now, starting to pick up speed. He dashed for the door of the last carriage. In a moment he was raising a foot to the first of two steel steps in front of the door and reaching for the railing beside it.

Todor drove slowly away from the station. Mykola’s horse and cart now belonged to him.

Krentz came out
of the station and looked around for his horse. Imperator had found a grassy strip in the middle of the cobbled street. When he reached the stallion, Krentz saw the apparently slipped knot and shrugged. He mounted and rode off, heard the train’s whistle in the distance. He felt annoyed, although not as much as he would have expected. There had been a deserter, and General Loder wanted him caught. Wanted to make an example of him.

As he passed the Seminarska church on his way to the garrison, he pulled up and let his mind review everything he’d seen. Imperator had slipped his tether, tempted by some green grass and a loose knot. But Reinhard Krentz didn’t tie loose knots. It wasn’t the way he did things. Nor would it be easy for a stranger to untie the horse. He was used to being handled only by Krentz and whoever was looking after him in the garrison.

Or perhaps the person who trained him.

He remembered four people travelling in a wagon. Trades-
people by the look of them; the youngest surely the son of the woman and one of the men.

There’d been something familiar about them, he realized.

He could send a telegram and everything would be taken care of. Guards would board the train and arrest Taras, send him back to join the army. Krentz could have him sent to the guardhouse for a while. He’d be company for that other one from the same village.

So he could have Taras brought right back. But he found himself wondering – did the fact that he
could
mean that he could also refrain?

Taras schooled this wonderful horse. Watched him take Imperator out from under the nose of the seedy old
pahn.
And there probably would be war, and many young men would die. He, Krentz, might die himself.

The comic side of it struck him, the audacity of the young man who’d once replaced a shoe on his horse. And once this rush of fellow feeling was there, it was too late. Krentz burst out laughing. He decided to take Imperator for a good run in the hills.

The conductor worked
his way down the aisle. Daria tried to look calm.

“Where is he?” She adjusted the hat, distressed by the unfamiliar structure of twisted black taffeta on her head. The dress felt hot and prickly against her skin, not at all like soft linen. The train was moving. They’d sold their land and left the village, got on a train for God knew where, put on the clothing of strangers...

“Shhh.” Mykola pretended to search in the cloth bag for something, his ticket, perhaps, although it was already clamped between his icy fingers. He tried to relax the fingers a little, to let the blood circulate. The conductor edged closer. Only two more passengers until he’d reach them – an old
dido
and a
baba
with her belongings tied up in a
babushka.

At the far end of the car,
Taras entered. Seeing him, Daria felt as if a heavy, wet fog swirled in her head and was afraid she’d faint. But she couldn’t do that; she had to keep the conductor from noticing Taras, who was making his way down the aisle.

She caught the conductor’s eye. “
Proshu,
how long is the journey to Lemberg?” She used the German name for the conductor, but in Ukrainian the city was Lviv.

The conductor’s glance told her it was rude to speak to him without being spoken to first. He was taking care of another passenger, after all. He was an important railway official.

She thought he might even be taking in their rather worn clothing and a certain unease in the way they carried themselves.

“It takes as long as it takes.”
Don’t bother me,
his eyes said.

Taras edged past the conductor’s back and took a seat opposite his parents. The conductor finished with the old couple and moved on to Mykola.

“Here are our tickets – for my wife and I.” Mykola handed them over
.
“And for our son.” Now he glanced at Taras.

The conductor turned and almost jumped. “Where the devil did he come from?”

Mykola lowered his voice.
“He had to use the toilet.”

They could see the conductor thinking, Did I see that one get on the train?

“And where might you be going?” the conductor asked suspiciously.

“To Lemberg,” Taras said. He tried to look like an innocent young man excited by his first train journey.

“We’re going to attend a wedding,” Daria said. “My husband’s cousin’s daughter is getting married.”

“Your husband’s cousin’s daughter?” The conductor asked skeptically.

“That’s right,” Mykola said. “She’s the same age as my son, and I must say that we had hoped the two of them might... But they live so far away, and we just don’t see each other that often. But it will be a good chance to see his family.”

“Oh yes, and what does your cousin do in Lemberg?”

“He runs a livery stable, with a smithy attached,” Mykola lied. “He’s actually done quite well.”

Taras was proud. His father was like an actor in a play. Not that Taras had seen a play, but he’d lived in Chernowitz and knew about such things.

The conductor nodded to himself for some time. Something jogged his brain. “Back there at the station...there were soldiers. Looking for someone. I wonder who that could have been.”